The Four Planes of Consciousness

 

The Four Planes of Consciousness

(from Mermaids, Sylphs, Gnomes, and Salamanders)

The elemental beings exist on the astral plane. Because they embody the energies underlying nature, it is also easy for them to interact with our physical world. Should they incarnate in human form, they usually have a stronger tie to the physical world than do human beings. They often possess telekinetic abilities in that they are able to affect weather or sense the nature of physical matter.     

          The astral plane of awareness is important because without strong elemental energies in the astral body, nothing spiritual—no angels, no visions, no divine intuitions or illuminations, no “toward the one” or “peace” or “light”— actually appears on earth. Or if it does appear, it is unstable and has no enduring effect.

The Akashic Plane

A simple way to view the planes is to say that there is a “higher” spiritual plane called akasha. You can throw in as many levels or dimensions as you want to akasha but it simply has one set of functions. The akashic plane creates and dissolves the four elements on each of the “lower” planes; it oversees their operations and balance; and it creates, designs, and ordains what purposes are to be fulfilled and when those purposes are completed.

          The akashic plane is formless in consciousness. It is outside of space and time. There is no need for thought, ideas, color, substance, energy, or anything. It can be conscious and operate without these though it is also free to use them whenever it wants to fulfill its purposes. In its essence, the akashic plane is a formless awareness that encompasses everything, everything that was, is, and that will or can be.

          If you stop here in akasha and rest, you get cosmic wisdom, all power, all-embracing love, and a nice sense of eternity. But without experience with the “lower” planes, you really have nothing at all.

          Like a stone statute sitting on a hillside in a Burmese jungle staring into eternity, there is a nice look about it, a nice countenance, but no result—no connection, no effect, no expression or compassion, no manifestation, no experience, no sharing, etc. There is nothing creative going on. All the same, from the akashic plane, you can get a sense of purpose. Then the mental plane kicks in. 

          What is a really nice sense of akashic purpose? Create a planet in a solar system enabling a great civilization to appear in which sentient beings arise and learn to create love where love does not exist.

          In the process, through experience with life in every aspect and variety, this race shall ascend. Through mastering all limitations from being in physical form, they shall attain a consciousness that is no longer in any way dependent on matter, form, or the physical world.

          In so doing, they shall mark the way for countless other civilizations to appear in this galaxy enabling them to resolve all conflicts, create peace amid war, love amid hatred, and wisdom amid ignorance. In this way, they shall discover that the experience of any one creature can be and is to be shared equally with every other living being. In the end, they finally realize that we are all one. 

          Our solar system has this unique vibration of the heart chakra—through the attraction of opposites, through the sharing heart to heart and through becoming one is found the highest learning curve and the revelation of the greatest cosmic wisdom. This love vibrates within every photon emitted by our sun. 

The Mental Plane

The mental plane is in essence a plan of action—it answers the questions, “Where, when, and how will the purposes of spirit be expressed?” All thoughts, thinking, philosophies, ideologies, doctrines, theories, etc. have value only to the extent they respond to a “higher” purpose by seeking to give it expression in the realms of space and time.

          The problem with the mental plane is that ideas have a survival instinct. They compete with each other for supremacy. You can see this in any ideology. An ideology by definition says that what it asserts is right and that everyone else is wrong. Ideas in an ideological system are all about attachment and the pursuit of power. 

          But in its essence, the mind itself is free of all attachment. It is open, clear, luminous, and self-existent. That is a simple Buddhist definition of the mind. But that is the mind without a plan of action. 

          For action, you need to set up a time frame. You ask, What resources are available to get things done? What problems will we need to solve? What is our back up plan if things go wrong?

          In the civilization of Atlantis, things went wrong. They misused both their science and their magic. And so that civilization was destroyed before it could damage the astral plane of the entire planet. 

          What is the back up plan? Give Homo sapiens a new beginning, say twelve thousand years to start over from scratch reinventing technology and science, rediscovering how to work with bronze and iron. Above all else, forbid them contact with the inner planes and the use of magic in combination with technology. In fact, forbid them the use of magic altogether except on a case by case basis. In this way, as a totally extroverted civilization they will have a second chance to learn how to be responsible for the consequences of their actions without quickly repeating the same errors they made before. 

          Will they be given another chance if they screw up again? This is iffy. It might be better to start over with a new and different race of beings. 

          After all, no one who has designed and operates nuclear reactors has anticipated that both the primary system and back up systems for cooling the reactors down would fail at the same time. And yet the consequences of such failure—say from a major solar storm—would affect the planet on a global scale releasing radiation into the environment for tens of thousands of years. 

          In this sense, the meltdown of the reactors in Japan is a god send. It is a wake up call to human beings to get them to take a hard look at their own actions. But corporations and governments do not want do this. We can well ask, Are there any human beings who are trustworthy enough to insure that the radioactive wastes of fission reactors will be stored safely for tens of thousands of years? Clearly, the human race is incapable of being responsible for using such deadly forms of energies. 

          This is all a mental plane discussion. It is about learning how to work in a safe manner with new technologies. It appears that human beings may have to learn the hard way from experience about how to acquire wisdom.

          The akashic plane is like a sovereign king. The king oversees his kingdom assigning to each person his task and purpose to fulfill for the greater good of the whole. The king has the authority to do this because in effect he is aware of what motivates each person from the core of their being.

          By contrast, the mental plane is like the king's counselors. They offer advice on how, when, and where to do things to fulfill his plans. They are the architects and administrators. They do the accounting, review, and make management decisions as to how to get the various projects to actually work.

 

The Astral Plane

The astral body or the soul is what empowers us to respond to life with sensitivity and appreciation. It enables us to feel and to be receptive to what is actually in front of us. It is where we literally experience “living life to the fullest” and “being fully alive.” 

          The astral body delights and is enlivened by interacting with concrete situations. It celebrates direct sensory perception. It is not abstract thinking. It is in the moment, this moment right now.

          The astral plane contains the emotional force and the ability to respond with life and feeling so that “higher” purposes, ideals, plans, goals, etc. actually manifest in our world.

          The astral body sustains motivation like a cheerleader; inspiration like a great bard or musician; and prophecy like a genuine sage who senses or perceives the future, because the future is already within his dreams—he is sensitive to and can feel what shall come to be in specific and concrete details.

          In terms of our metaphor of a king and his kingdom, to get results you turn to the captain of the guard (or commander of the king’s armies)—a man who is all action. He possesses charisma—the power to motivate, to inspire, and to move others to action. He is the one who actually goes out and insures that the borders are not violated and that security is not compromised. 

          And to extend our metaphor of kingdom further, we might also say the astral plane is queen to the king. She is the feminine presence. She senses nuances and subtitles in what the king desires and suggests options he may not have considered.   

          In other words, akashic authority and mental plane orders actually manifest on the astral plane as courage, righteousness, overwhelming energy, exhilaration, and also tenderness and nurturing affection. The astral plane is not as abstract or generalizing as the mental plane. It does not do the analytical theory and testing of science.

          The astral plane is where ideas get applied in concrete situations. The astral experience, then, is personal, graphic, and concrete. On the astral plane is found every kind of emotional attraction, enthrallment, desire, and way of interacting, bonding, or uniting with another.

          But the astral plane is not subservient or secondary or lower. It has its own akashic light—this light is dazzling and bright as the sun. It has no form. It is a vibration that is the unity and perfection of all the endless variety of attractions and desires that move human and all other beings to action. It embodies the complete fulfillment of life in every conceivable way.

          In order to express the greater overriding purpose of this solar system, our planet possesses four elemental sets of beings. The sylphs embody perfect freedom and their passion is for harmony.

          The mermaids/undines embody the perfection of love not as an abstraction, ideal, or divine vision. Rather they are the concrete embodiment of an inner peace with the universe; and a love that is one with all of the waters of the earth and with every living being whom they come in contact with. For this reason they are not empathic but empathy itself—they can literally feel what others feel as if the astral body of the other has become their own.

          No world religion has the faintest clue as to the existence of the mermaid realm. This realm of sensual bliss, ecstasy, and love has been barred from the human race in the past because human beings have been too immature to touch such purity of love without abusing it.

          The salamanders are all about the pursuit of power, but there is no evil or desire to destroy within the kings of the fire element. They seek the fire that is so pure that it no longer needs to be fed with a fuel from any external source. Anything it touches it transforms purifying it so it reaches its highest attainment.

          The gnomes possess a quiet ecstasy embodied in silence that enables them to pursue their work without being concerned about how much time or effort is involved. They too like the salamanders seek to take matter and transform it so that it is united to spirit. A gnome is a workman who takes whatever he is working on and seeks to make it more perfect.

          These four elemental beings, then, embody astral energies that serve as motivation, inspiration, and the desire to turn dreams into reality. Only by working with the astral body and astral plane can we possibly experience and then learn to bless others in turn so their lives are fulfilled in every conceivably way. 

The Physical World

For some the physical plane and for others the astral plane is called Malkuth—the Kingdom. This domain receives the highest emanation from Divine Providence. It is where we learn the most, meet the greatest variety of people and spirits, and where we have the best opportunities for helping others.

          The physical world forces us to learn. By undergoing experiences of great limitation, we learn to overcome those limitations, master them, and then and only then do we transcend them.

          The king with his authority ordains purposes. The counselors and managers set forth the plans and time frames. The bards, poets, artists, healers, and people with passion, inspiration, and motivation actually set those plans in action. 

          And then in the physical world, if the other three planes are functioning, something of great value appears on earth and endures through all ages of the world. When some vision is brought down so it actually manifests in its fullness on earth, a great many other people may experience it. The wealth of the inner planes then becomes a wealth in the “real world” that enriches all our lives.

          The physical world is not lower. It is a support system for all spiritual journeys and ventures. It is also the end product—here is where the highest visions and forms (or formless) of consciousness are free to manifest. As a mermaid queen once said, “If you are free in your soul, then it does not matter the form you are in or the realm in which you live. In your heart, you remain free.”  

          It is possible to learn in the physical world to get your aura to shine as bright as the sun. There have been those whose auras are so bright they literally light up a dark room in the night. In the physical world, you can also take a small amount of hydrogen and fuse the atoms so they shine as bright and as hot as the sun. 

          The physical world contains immense amounts of energy stored in physical form. Neither of the above skills—to release the energy in matter or to create the vibration in one's aura that fulfills life in every conceivable way—can be learned on the inner planes. You have to journey to this world to acquire these abilities. A civilization must exist within the physical world and master this world before it accomplishes the purposes originating from the akashic plane.